by Caney, Mark
As Sky watched the first fireworm reached the fish. It moved up its body until it found the opening of its gill. It pushed its head into the opening to gain access to the tender membranes there. Its companion moved up to one of the sores on the side of the fish. As they began to devour its flesh the fish shuddered slightly.
One Eye looked at Sky quizzically. ‘Are they beautiful to you?’
‘No, how could they be; look what they are doing!’
‘If you saw one moving alone across the seabed would it be beautiful?’
‘Well, perhaps, yes. I suppose they are beautiful to look at, but seeing them like this makes you forget that.’
‘Then a beautiful thing becomes ugly if it performs an ugly act?’
‘I suppose so. Surely you can’t find them attractive when they are doing this?’
‘What would happen if they didn’t do this?’
‘Well…the fish would rot. If they, and creatures like them, did not eat the dying things the seabed would soon be choked with rotting material.’
‘i don’t think i would find that beautiful.’
‘And this is, then?’
‘Yes. If you can accept that beauty means fulfilling nature’s purpose, then these worms are beautiful. If something contributes to the wholeness of Ocean and does not disturb the balances we call it beautiful.’
Sky wondered who “we” were, but had to excuse himself to surface. When he returned, One Eye had moved on from the now dead fish. Sky picked up their conversation, ‘So, acts that harm another can be beautiful?’
‘That’s not what i said. And it is often not the case, especially where malice is involved. i doubt those worms have much malice but the more intelligent a creature is the more it should be accountable for such things.’
‘Especially zetii then.’
‘For example. And they are not always. i had a visitor here not long ago who knew that well.’
‘Who was that?’
‘He had been badly treated by those so-called Guardians. They have strange ways and seem capable of almost anything.’
Sky shuddered. ‘I have seen what they are capable of.’
Sky surfaced again to breathe, then realised that One Eye was still down there, and tried to remember the last time he had surfaced for air. He did go up sometimes but it seemed there were impossibly long intervals between his breaths. He came back alongside the old dolphin. ‘Will you teach me how you make each breath last so long?’
One Eye looked at him with a slightly surprised expression. ‘Do i? Well, yes, i suppose it must seem so to you.’ He looked slightly perplexed and murmured to himself, ‘How do i do it now?’ He turned again to Sky. ‘We’ll try then. Follow me.’
He led Sky up to the surface and along the wall edge until they came to an area of shallow water on top of the wall. One Eye gestured to the expanse of white coral sand. ‘Go lay on that and relax. Don’t mind me.’
Sky did as he was bidden, and lay on his front on the flat sand. The light was very bright there in the shallows and the water was noticeably warmer. His body was rocked slightly by the slight swell just above him. He relaxed as much as he could, wondering what One Eye could do to help him. The old dolphin moved alongside him. Sky suddenly jumped in surprise. One Eye had scanned his side with penetrating sonar, he was looking inside him!
‘i said don’t mind me. Forget your silly inhibitions; i am trying to help you here.’
Sky tried again to relax. He supposed it was foolish in a way; after all, if he was ill he would let a Healer do this to him.
One Eye gave several more bursts of sound along his body then grunted. ‘It’s no surprise you are burning up oxygen, several of your muscle groups are still working here.’
‘But I don’t feel like they are; I feel quite relaxed.’
‘Feel this.’
Sky felt One Eye direct bursts of sound into his abdomen. It felt as though his muscles were shaking inside him, as though they were being massaged from within. He realised that the muscles around his diaphragm were under tension. And he consciously willed it away, deliberately releasing it slowly, completely. One Eye moved along his body, using the invisible force to identify other parts of his body that were tense, directing Sky to release them. Finally the old dolphin was content with the result.
‘Good. Now your body is optimised for diving. Remember exactly how this feels, boy: use no part of your body unnecessarily. It’s a waste and Ocean hates waste. Now! Let’s optimise your mind. Go and take a breath, come back here and relax just as you are now.’
As Sky returned to the sand he released his body once more, using the techniques he had learned in the Academy, but now going further, feeling himself relax more than ever before. His body felt light, displaced from him.
‘How do you feel now?’
‘I feel good. Very relaxed. Ready to dive.’
‘No you are not. How does my voice sound to you?’
‘Like it always does, I suppose.’
‘Well it shouldn’t. It should sound as though i am far away, speaking to you from another place. You are far too high in your conscious mind. You should be at the bottom of the fourth level of consciousness; almost unconscious but still with conscious control. You need to be in the state of waking dreaming.’
One Eye spent much of the rest of the day coaching Sky. Making him let go; stopping all unnecessary effort, reducing the blood flow to his extremities, slowing his heart. He showed him how to withdraw in his mind to a small place deep inside his head, where, with the slightest effort, he could still be aware of the world and his body, but distantly, like the faint light of a falling star at dusk on the far horizon.
Eventually One Eye seemed content. ‘Let’s see if this has worked. Follow me.’
He led Sky back to the cliff and then down. At last they came to a cave in the wall where he stopped.
‘What is it?’ Sky asked.
‘A tunnel. It goes under the island and comes out in the shallows on the other side of the headland. You are going to swim through it.’
‘But the other side is so far from here! It isn’t possible!’
‘If you believe that something is impossible then you will be proved right. But i tell you that if you do as i have shown you and believe that you can do it you will do it.’
Sky looked at him, a feeling of coldness rising in his belly. ‘I will die.’
‘Yes, of course. But it need not be on this day.’
‘You really believe I can?’
‘Yes. Come up and take a last breath.’
One Eye brought him to the surface. Sky looked out of the water, fearful that it was for the last time. Close by, on the rocks, a pelican was perched. It eyed him warily. Sky remembered when, seemingly a lifetime ago, Cloud Passing had taught him a question and answer, so that he might be recognised by another Aligner. On impulse now, he said to One Eye, ‘Can the hunted trust the hunter?’
One Eye snorted. ‘You will have a hunter chasing you through that tunnel if you don’t focus now! A hunter made up of your own terrors and imaginings. Now concentrate!’
Sky tried to prepare himself; slowing his breathing, trying to relax his body, but the thought of the tunnel kept forcing itself to the front of his mind. It would be long, oh, so long, and nowhere to breathe. It might be narrow, there could be false passages and it would be black, totally dark. If he ran out of air there would be nothing to do. He would die struggling against the cold hardness of the uncaring rock.
Then he felt One Eye press his head against his own. He spoke soothingly, quietly. ‘Remember that dying fish we saw boy? Remember the worm that crawled into his head and ate into his brain? You have a worm in your head now and its name is Fear. Get it out or it will eat into your brain. Leave your fears aside. They may be true, they may not, but it won’t help you to drag them with you through that long tunnel. Leave them here at the surface. Purify your mind and trust in yourself. You can do this thing. Just swim.’
; As he listened to the words, Sky felt his fear fading. He withdrew into the back reaches of his mind, picturing the dull red glow representing his awareness of himself concentrate into that one point. He felt alone and content in that place. The rest of his body, the rest of Ocean was still there, but very far away. He felt his head tilt down, his tail lift for a moment into the air, and he had started his dive.
He entered the tunnel mouth and swam into its depths. Very soon it was totally dark. No light means no life, so soon the creatures of the outside were behind him; he was penned in by the sterile limestone walls. As the light failed he started to use short bursts of sonar to see ahead. He closed his eyes; there was nothing to see and it made it easier to stay in the diving trance.
Just swim.
From his far vantage point at the very back of his mind he was aware that he was swimming. Probably it was for a long time, but maybe it was just for an instant. He felt far removed from what his body was doing, and far from the possible consequences. He wondered for a moment if he had ever experienced this before. No, never. Yes, always. It was hard to separate the present from the past.
Just swim.
Time probably passed. Probably a lot of it. And then more. An eternity of swimming in darkness. He became aware of a message coming from his body, a call for something.
Just swim.
The floor of the tunnel seemed to rise slightly, then dropped. Like a mouth opening. Then the sound picture drew teeth in his mind, immensely long, sharp teeth hanging down menacingly from the ceiling, more vicious replicas rising from the floor to meet them. He was swimming into the jaws of a monster.
His heart rate started to increase, his eye snapped open, he suddenly realised how badly he needed to breathe. It was still totally dark. He could not see the monster’s jaws but they were there and he realised that they actually seemed less frightening than dying here with no air. This was the end.
A voice came from somewhere. A steady voice. Calm. ‘It’s that worm again boy. Get rid of it and swim.’
With a huge effort he did so. He slowed his heart again and forced his body back under control.
I am going to die anyway; at least I will die with me in control, not the worm.
He carried on swimming, into the jaws, his back gently brushing the stalactites as he passed. He felt himself fading again. The bright red light of his consciousness was small, smaller, the tiniest dot of light, now fading, fading, almost gone. His mind seemed to slowly fill with a pure, white light. He supposed this was death. He opened his eyes to see what death looked like.
Beside him, his back dappled in the brilliant light was One Eye. Just above him, the surface danced. He tilted his head at Sky, his eye smiling. ‘Take a breath boy — you deserve it.’
Sky surfaced and realised just how sweet air could taste. ‘You followed me through,’ he gasped.
‘i thought i should keep that worm from your head and the hunter from your tail.’
‘The hunter?’
‘Yes, the hunter made up of all your terrors that were ready to chase and devour you.’
‘I see. Yes, I think I would have been hunted and caught if you had not.’
One Eye gave Sky a long, hard stare. ‘And the hunted can trust that the hunter will kill.’
Chapter 45
“Extraordinary times demand extraordinary compromises.”
- The ‘Seer’ Stone Eyes (13,222-13,264)
Dusk cautiously moved further into the gloom of the little cave. The entrance was narrow and led to a tunnel of similar size. As she moved into it the light from the entrance dimmed so she used echolocation for guidance. This allowed her to visualise where she was going: the tunnel curved to the left and started widening a little; the ceiling rose somewhat too. It was quite dark now, but as she rounded the curve she saw a dim light ahead, coming from the ceiling. The tunnel widened into a small chamber, about three times her body length across and just as high. There was a little opening in the ceiling letting in the light and a very small air space: probably just big enough to get a breath, she thought. The sky was visible through the hole; it must come up through the ground on the shore.
For a moment she thought there was no one there, then a cracked voice came from the shadows: ‘What is it you want now?’
She knew that voice! She whispered: ‘It is I, Fades Into Dusk.’
The owner of the voice moved slowly into the shaft of light from the hole. ‘Dusk? Can it really be you?’
She could not believe it. His body was covered in wounds, some partly healed but many not. He looked haggard and hungry, his eyes seemed empty, but as he looked at her some hope appeared in them. She went to him, pressing her head gently to his. ‘Deneb, what’s happened to you?’
He leant against her, his eyes closed in pain. ‘Wait a moment.’ He lifted himself to the small air space, positioning himself so that his blowhole could reach the surface and took air. He had to press himself against the sharp rocks of the cave ceiling to do it. She could not imagine how it must be in here when the sea was rough outside; how had he breathed then, when the water was being driven in and out of that hole with huge force?
As he sank again she caught a glimpse of the skin of his back and she had her answer.
‘How are you here?’ he asked, ‘Does anyone else know about me?’
‘No, and I can’t explain now. I’ve tricked my way in but Storm could come at any time, I have to go before then. But I’ll get help for you, I promise!’ She started to go.
‘Wait, don’t go yet, there is something I have to tell you! The Guardians have me here for a reason. They are planning on using me. When I was waiting to meet the Xenthos, a group of the Guardians ambushed me and attacked me. They hurt me pretty badly. They forced me to come here, and I have been here...fifty-two or fifty-three days I think, nearly two moons anyway. So the Xenthos must think we didn’t turn up for the goodwill exchange.’
‘Don’t worry about that, saving you is more important — I’ve got to go now!’
‘No, you don’t understand — I’ve overheard their conversations sometimes. In the next day or two the Xenthos should have escorted me back to the clan. The Guardians are going to take me there just before. Dusk, they are going to kill me there and leave me for our clan to find. It will look like the Xenthos killed me!’
Dusk could not speak for a moment. Were they really capable of this? ‘But why — what would be the point?’
He surfaced painfully to take another breath. She winced as the slight swell pressed him against the ceiling. A little of his blood drifted down to them, like smoke through still air.
‘Because the Guardians want the Ka-Tse to dominate all the other zeta species. They think that’s the answer to the food shortages and a lot of other crazy things. They want open conflict between us and the other zetii species. They think that because I am the Prime Mother’s son, the Council…’
She wheeled around. Yes, there it was — a distant familiar cry: ‘It is I, Storm Before Darkness!”
Chapter 46
“He went to the land
She went to the sea
I’ll come back to you
If you give yourself to me.”
- Traditional
The fleck of white was distinct now in spite of the distance. It shone bright against the dark band of rain clouds that girdled that horizon, the towers of cloud boiling slowly high into the air above it. There would be rain coming with those clouds, and sharp wind squalls, but for now the fleck was ahead of it all. The sunlight still favoured it and its optimistic brightness beckoned the eye away from the forbidding gloom.
Sky watched it reflectively as he slowly patrolled the shoreline of Forlorn Island. He hoped that the fleck was coming this way as it seemed. It would carry Walkers, and he had become deeply intrigued by them since meeting One Eye.
The “one or two” days that he had suggested Sky stay at the island had lengthened into nearly fifty. He had found that One Eye’s irascible fa
çade masked a willingness to have some company, he was just very fussy as to who it might be. And he was an Aligner. He had told Sky stories of a few other visitors; none of whom stayed long. One Eye found most other dolphins tedious companions. He complained that they had few opinions of their own, they lacked insight, were unable to hold an intelligent debate, or that they were simply boring. Sky had been surprised and flattered to realise that apparently, he was not considered to be in these categories. As he slowly gained One Eye’s trust he had learned more and more about him. He knew an extraordinary amount about the Walkers, and Sky had tried to find out why. Sky gathered from strands of conversations that he had been in the company of Walkers for some time when he was young, probably as a captive; then he had somehow escaped or been released. Whenever Sky tried to probe, he would stop talking or change the subject. But Sky had gathered that they had tried to make him perform some task for them. It seemed that he had initially been ambivalent about it and had cooperated, but then he had learned something that had completely alienated him from them. He had made the remark on several occasions that there were probably plenty of well-intentioned Walkers, but had clearly implied that they were not all like that.
He seemed to know a lot about the ways in which the Walkers fought each other. The scale of slaughter in their conflicts sounded staggering, and Sky was sure that this was one subject where One Eye was prone to exaggeration. Sky still struggled to understand why they would do this and the old dolphin had no real explanation. Sky had wondered if a faction of Walkers had tried to use One Eye in some way in their efforts to dominate another of their clans, but it seemed too bizarre. He had never dared to ask him as the old dolphin clearly disliked talking about it. On some occasions though, Sky had found that One Eye could be persuaded to say more and Sky had made good use of these, asking many questions about the Walkers and their strange ways.